Teaching My Students to Pray
Two years ago, I made the intentional decision to pray before all of my classes. I'm in agreement with Andrew Root: the most critical and pressing spiritual formation task facing the church today is teaching ourselves how to pray.
To be clear, this isn't about some pious "add-on" to make my class "Christian." It's not really even about practicing a "spiritual discipline," some grueling work we engage in to become better Christians. Prayer is, rather, simply an enchantment. As I describe in Hunting Magic Eels, prayer helps us overcome our pervasive attention blindness, bringing the dancing gorilla into view (if you don't know what I mean by "dancing gorilla," read the book). Prayer is vision and perception. Cleaning the dirty windows. Prayer recovers our lost sacramental ontology.
Prayer is also good medicine. A balm for the heart, a salve for our hurts. Every time I pray with my classes after the "Amen" there is soft but audible sigh. I wish you could hear it. Some cool cloth has been placed upon a fevered brow. A moment of relief and respite found in the middle of a hard and difficult day. A stream appearing in the middle of the desert.
Lord, teach us to pray and not give up.
Thank you for this. Having grown up in an atmosphere where public prayer was as much a tool for theological gatekeeping and self-righteous evangelism as it was for crying out to God (maybe more so), I have largely rebelled against it. BUT I feel the soft urging of the Spirit still, and I know it's an important act of enchantment... I find it extremely difficult and rarely pray publicly. Any tips on getting started?